What’s on RNZ News at midday – Nov 7

The police have been talking directly to dozens of influential gang members to try to convince them to give up their banned guns; and the former National Party Minister Anne Tolley has admitted telling her sister about Winston Peters pension overpayment in an outburst.

1.The police have been talking directly to dozens of influential gang members to try to convince them to give up their banned guns but that’s yet to result in many legal weapons held by gangs being handed over.

2.A police officer has quit after suggesting he was going to plant evidence in cars, so he could search them in order to inflate his arrest record. An investigation by the Independent Police Conduct Authority has found no evidence he actually did plant evidence but investigators were troubled by the comments.

3.A jury has watched a compilation of CCTV footage showing Grace Millane and the man accused of her murder at various bars and eateries during a three-hour Tinder date. The 27-year-old man, who has name suppression, is charged with murdering the British backpacker in his CityLife apartment on the night of 1 December last year.

4.Two men described as leaders of drug syndicate smuggling methamphetamine from California have been given lengthy prison terms. In the High Court in Auckland this morning Tevita Sitanilei Kulu was sentenced to 18-years and Tevita Matangi Fangupo to 17-years.

5.The former National Party Minister Anne Tolley has admitted telling her sister about Winston Peters pension overpayment in an outburst she says she immediately regretted but she says, that was after media had already leaked the information.

6.The trial of the former Dunedin doctor Venod Skantha accused of murdering 16-year-old Amber-Rose Rush has been told the teenager was stabbed with enough force to savour her carotid artery and caused damage to her spine and windpipe.

7.The body of the second climber who died on the Remarkables yesterday has now been recovered. The two climbers were part of a guided tour group when they fell hundreds of metres off the cliff.

8. Fonterra’s board of directors have acknowledged to shareholders that it’s been a tough year but say they are confident the corporation farming situation will improve.

9.The biological father Michael Cole of a five-year-old Leon Jayet-Cole says he got death threats from the boy’s step father. The autistic Christchurch school boy died in hospital in 2015 after suffering a serious head injury at his home.

10. A woman who has spent many years in care and in a psychiatric hospital has outlined the years of abuse and humiliation to the Royal Commission into abuse in state and faith based care. The commission is holding a public hearing in Auckland.

11. The higher burnout rates among senior women doctors is being blamed on a sexist medical culture and lack of work life balance. The Senior Doctors Union has reported on the results of a nationwide survey of members in 2016 which found 71 percent of senior women doctors were suffering burnouts compared with 50 percent of their male colleagues.

12. Democrats in the US have released transcripts of the testimony of two key figures in the impeachment inquiry of President Trump, former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland.

13.Samoa's Ministry of Health is working with the Education Ministry to close all primary schools next week to contain the measles epidemic.Two children and an adult are thought to have died from the virus during the outbreak.

14. The Sikh community in Hastings will be able to build a new temple on productive land after all. The District Council which refused resource consent in January has changed its mind and reversed the decision.

15. Napier residents are being urged to keep away from a colony of the world’s most threatened species of gull which have decided to make an inner city estuary their new home.

Help us create a sustainable future for independent local journalism

As New Zealand moves from crisis to recovery mode the need to support local industry has been brought into sharp relief.

As our journalists work to ask the hard questions about our recovery, we also look to you, our readers for support. Reader donations are critical to what we do. If you can help us, please click the button to ensure we can continue to provide quality independent journalism you can trust.

Comments

Newsroom does not allow comments directly on this website.
We invite all readers who wish to discuss a story or leave
a comment to visit us on Twitter
or Facebook. We also welcome
your news tips and feedback via email: contact@newsroom.co.nz.
Thank you.